Shares of Avenue Supermarts Limited (D-Mart) made a stellar debut on the bourses today, with the bulls thronging the counter right at the stroke of the opening bell.After the overwhelming response the company’s IPO received, it was expected that the stock would make a sparkling debut. But then, the start turned out to be much more spectacular than expected. After vaulting to Rs 648.90 on NSE (Rs 650 on BSE), the stock has retracted a tad, to end at 642.05 (on NSE) and 640.75 on BSE, up over 112% over the IPO price. On BSE, the D-Mart counter clocked a volume of over 14.567 million shares in the session. On the National Stock Exchange, over 79.33 million shares changed hands at the D-Mart counter oN Tuesday.The scintillating debut of D-Mart has helped the promoter of the company Radhakishan Damani, said to be the mentor of high-profile investor Rakesh Jhunhunwala, move past Rahul Bajaj, Anil Agarwal and Anil Ambani, in the country’s billionaires’ list. The stock’s debut has resulted in Damani’s net worth rising to about $6 billion.The IPO from Avenue Supermarts was oversubscribed almost 105 times. The company had priced the issue at a band of Rs 295 – 299 per share.Avenue Supermarts mopped up Rs 1870 crore through the initial public offering that was open for public subscription between March 8 and 10. The company had raised Rs 561 crore through allotment of shares to anchor investors as part of the anchor book allocation.The company reported total revenue of Rs 8803 crore for the nine months to December 2016. Its net profit grew at a CAGR of 40.55% from fiscal 2014 to Rs 318.76 crore in fiscal year 2016. For the nine months to December, its net profit was Rs 387.47 crore.”Avenue Supermarts has managed its operating costs well compared to other companies in the sector, mainly because of a good working cycle and inventory management,” said Amarjeet Maurya, senior research analyst at Angel Broking.”At a time when the retail industry is doing bad and there isn’t a lot of penetration, the company is still generating good profit and return ratios compared to its peers, and that is why it is getting a reward today.”
